Blog - Karen A. Chase

Ancestry and the American Revolution

November 29, 2018 By Karen A. Chase

Genealogy and the Daughters of the American Revolution

Many of my friends––and even family––are surprised to find out that I am a DAR. After all, I’m Canadian! Yet, it’s true.

Three of my grandparents were from the United States, and on my mother’s side, I’ve fully traced my lineage back to Jacob G. Klock––a senator during the American Revolutionary War. The DAR database helped me find my ancestors, via all those who have joined the DAR from the Jacob Klock line.

*The Founders of the Daughters of the American Revolution*, a 1929 marble sculpture by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. It is located beside DAR Constitution Hall, headquarters for the Daughters of the American Revolution, in Washington, D.C.

Ancestry DNA plus the DAR

Many of us this holiday season, me included, are hoping to have our DNA tests done to help us further define our heritage. (Right now Ancestry.com has a holiday discount for gifting such tests.)

But DNA, and who we’re related to, is only part of our history. Understanding how or if our family’s contributed to who we’ve become as a nation is where the online database through the DAR comes in.

According to the DAR, “the DAR Genealogical Research System (GRS) includes free online databases containing information on Revolutionary patriot ancestors, descendants of those patriots, as well as the vast array of genealogical resources from the DAR Library.” You do not have to be a member to search the database.

Minority Revolutionary Patriots

The DAR is changing, for the better. More minorities––African Americans, Spanish, Native Americans, and others––are joining as a result of sources and initiatives the DAR helps provide. Advice and options for tracing minority patriots can be found here.

Have you had your DNA test done? Were you surprised by the results?

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Thanks for sharing in the spirit of learning about our collective American History by subscribing to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For Karen-related author research tidbits, book news and events, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

Native American Storytellers

November 19, 2018 By Karen A. Chase

StorytellersFilmFest4_KarenAChase

November is National Native American History month. This past weekend was Richmond’s Native American Storytellers Film Festival, Pocahontas Reframed. As evidenced by the events and films showcased this weekend, the festival, “stems from a passion and desire for indigenous languages, cultures, and societies to thrive.”

Themes from the Storytellers Film Festival

From a film by Edward S. Curtis from 1914 that has been remastered, through shorts films, to full-length feature films––all focus was on sharing insights into the Indian experience (both past and present). A few themes stood out. A history shared is a history embraced. Storytelling is a human experience that we need to nurture, not suppress. All voices matter if we are to progress.

Enabling Authentic Storytelling

To help these themes become reality, it means empowering those who can tell their stories authentically. It means allowing room for other voices on the page, behind the camera, or at the microphone. It means providing funding. And education. Pamela Pierce, CEO of Silver Bullet Productions is doing all three. Her organization provides workshops for tribal students to teach them film-making, production, and storytelling. All the equipment––cameras, laptops, and more––are provided and then given to the students so they can then create using their voices.

As Adrian Baker states in his film INJUNUITY, “In a world searching for answers it is time we turned to Native wisdom for guidance.”

What Native wisdom or story guides you? Or do you seek more?

One of the dancers from the opening night social event.

Michael Horse, Emcee of the film festival. Artist, actor, and activist, he’s appeared in several films and television shows, including Twin Peaks, and the CBC Canadian series, North of 60.

The panel discussion that was part of the opening night, held at Richmond’s Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

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Thanks for sharing in the spirit of learning about our collective American History by subscribing to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For Karen-related author research tidbits, book news and events, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

A Case for Fiction

November 15, 2018 By Karen A. Chase

This blog post first appeared in November of 2016, just after the presidential election. No matter your feelings for how that election or the recent mid-terms turned out, you might be needing a reboot. A way to cope. Or a means to find compassion—for those coming in and those left out.

In a Publisher’s Weekly article on Monday, Jonathan Kurtz, publisher of Prometheus Books, said they were selling their fiction list to Start Publishing, to return to being a primarily nonfiction press. He cited that in our current world, “intelligent nonfiction is again of urgent value.” I agree 100% with raising the discourse, and do hope that future nonfiction books will aim to lift, rather than to debase, the consciousness of our country.

However, I absolutely do not believe that nonfiction alone can raise us up. So, I once again give you… a case for why….

We need more fiction!

Especially thoughtful, deep, well-researched and so-worth-pondering fiction. We need it more than ever for three reasons:

To_Kill_a_Mockingbird_(1962)_trailer_2 — Gregory Peck (left) & James Anderson in *To Kill a Mockingbird*––the number one book in the Great American Read.(Image: A Public Domain clip from the trailer by Universal Studios.)

Escape. Sometimes the world seems topsy-turvy. Either we’re getting what we want, and no one else seems happy, or what we’ve lost makes us rethink everything we thought was true. Fiction can give us a break––a means to flee to another time in history, or to a utopian or more dystopian future. Inside of that “other” place we’re able to find something else.

Empathy. No matter when or where fiction is set, all great fiction is focused on the characters. Some we will love. Some, not so much. And yet all of them, if well-drawn, illustrate how humanity is complex. People are flawed. And yet, by seeing intimately into someone else’s life, even the worst antagonist might elicit compassion from us. Sometimes pity. Either way, the result is something greater.

Enlightenment. It sounds incongruent, but the goal of great fiction writers is to write the truth. The truth, however dark, beautiful, crushing, sad, joyful, odd, funny, or head-spinning. Do we weave in opinions? Of course, but how can we obtain enlightenment without them? It is only in the absence of listening to and attempting to understand a dissenting opinion that we recede into darkness.

So please, regardless of where you are these days, take a deep breath. Go to your favorite bookstore or library. Read fiction. Write fiction. And by all means, share fiction. Through a thoughtful exchange of words, perhaps we can all heal together.

How to Select Your Next Fiction Read

Pick a book, any book, from this list of 100 books compiled by PBS for the Great American Read. And by all means, pick up number one, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee from your favorite librarian.

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Thanks for sharing in the spirit of learning about our collective American History by subscribing to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For Karen-related author research tidbits, book news and events, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

Washington’s Rules of Civility, No. 7

November 13, 2018 By Karen A. Chase

A Case for Decent Behavior

Last week on COMPOSITIONS, guest Edward Lengel made a case for studying history with compassion. Equally important, is a call for a little more civility (not just politically). For this, too, we can look to our fore-bearers. In this case, George Washington.

GWRulesofCivility_KarenAChase — My own little copy, in my own little room. It looks like Washington is giving the folks on that Toile wallpaper a disapproving look, n’est pas?

Washington’s Rules

Sometime before he was 16, Washington wrote 110 of these maxims by hand, transcribing them from a set created by French Jesuits in the 16th century. What should seem like common sense or simple courtesy for behaving in public––then and now––seems worth repeating. So, every now and then I will feature one of these helpful suggestions, in no particular order, for you to ponder and share. This one seems self-explanatory.

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Thanks for sharing in the spirit of learning about our collective American History by subscribing to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For Karen-related author research tidbits, book news and events, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

Edward Lengel on Compassion

November 8, 2018 By Karen A. Chase

The Compassionate Historian

A Guest Post by Edward Lengel

Compassion is the key to understanding history. Too often, readers and historians look on the past with a kind of arrogance, not just judging their forbears, but absolving themselves of the basic human flaws that have inspired the mistakes and tragedies of the past. We, of course, would never submit without protest to the kinds of misdeeds our ancestors committed. Or would we?

And, by setting our own humanity above our ancestors, don’t we also deny ourselves the chance of learning from their accomplishments?

A much better approach to history is to recognize, as the art historian Sir Kenneth Clark concluded in his great [1969] television series Civilisation, that “men haven’t changed much in the last two thousand years.” With this in mind, we can embrace the past and recognize in it the story of ourselves.

George Washington did not achieve victory in the Revolutionary War because he was better than human, but because he made the most of his humanity. The British mishandled the Irish Famine of 1846-52 not because they were exceptionally evil, but because they gave in to instinctive flaws, such as fear, that we also share. And the men and women who fought in and experienced the First World War, such as the four individuals I describe in my book Never in Finer Company, succumbed or overcame based upon the resources inside themselves.

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You can follow Edward Lengel, independent author and historian, via his blog, Facebook, or Twitter. He is currently Colonial Williamsburg’s Revolutionary in Residence. When not writing “cracking good stories,” he’s often hiking through history and giving tours and talks.

LENGEL_NeverInFinerCompany3-2-pdf EdLengel_Photo2

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Thanks for sharing in the spirit of learning about our collective American History by subscribing to the blog. Guest posts like this one are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For Karen-related author research tidbits, book news and events, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

Event: Philly Museum Free to Veterans

November 6, 2018 By Karen A. Chase

A Philly Museum Salutes Veterans

From November 10–12, the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia will provide free admission for veterans, active and retired Military, and Blue Star families (courtesy of Comcast/NBCUniversal). If you’ve never been to Philadelphia, or to this museum, it is without question worth a weekend trip.

Museum_of_the_American_Revolution_-_Joy_of_Museums_3 — Museum of the American Revolution. Creative Commons photo by Gordon Makryllos.

Events to Commemorate Veterans Day

Throughout this Veterans Day weekend, the museum will host special programs and tours. Among other activities related to early American soldiers and their families, will be a talk on Friday, November 9th by Russell Shorto. His book Revolution Song highlights six unique people who supported the Revolutionary cause.

Of interesting note, the image on the cover of Shorto’s book, has also been interpreted in one of the bronze sculptures featured on the exterior of the museum. The sculpture features Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” It was designed and donated by Chinese-immigrant and U.S. citizen, artist Ellen Qiong Schicktanz (see the piece here).

Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware_by_Emanuel_Leutze,_MMA-NYC,_1851 — Emanuel Leutze: Washington Crossing the Delaware. 1851. Currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

For more information about the events, visit the Museum of the American Revolution website. Or reach out to Visit Philly, for tour and travel information about the City of Brotherly Love.

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Thanks for sharing in the spirit of learning about our collective American History by subscribing to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For Karen-related author research tidbits, book news and events, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

Event: Women in Artillery

November 1, 2018 By Karen A. Chase

Free Lecture in Yorktown.

On November 8th, a free public lecture will be held at the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown, led by Archivist Ali Kolleda of the U.S. Army Women’s Museum at Fort Lee.

Her lecture, “From Aprons to Armaments: Women’s Role in Artillery,” will review the changes in gender roles and women’s involvement in artillery from the American Revolution through World War II.

Expect to hear about legendary women, like Molly Pitcher, featured in the image below. During the American Revolution, at the Battle of Monmouth in June of 1778, when her husband was shot, Molly stepped in to help fire the canon. Dang!

Event Details

Event: Thursday, November 8. 7PM. Free to the public, but advance reservations are recommended at (757) 253-4572 or rsvp@jyf.virginia.gov.

The_women_of_'76-__Molly_Pitcher__the_heroine_of_Monmouth_LCCN2002698846 — The women of ’76: “Molly Pitcher” the heroine of Monmouth. Library of Congress, Reference print in LOT 4412 G.n

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Thanks for sharing in the spirit of learning about our collective American History, by subscribing to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For Karen-related author research, book news and events, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

A New Author Brand. For me.

October 30, 2018 By Karen A. Chase

For the last couple of years, I’ve been building branded platform tools––websites, social media, and more––for authors through my 224Design business. It was time for this author to cobble better shoes for herself. Now, from your own comfy chair, you can gad about, Chasing Histories with me.

FB_WebsiteLaunch_KarenAChase

Why build a New Author Website?

Soon I’ll have a new book! Summer of 2019, my Revolutionary War novel will at long last (whew!) be published. This website is a place for book clubs and other venues to connect with me about talks and presentations. On my Giving page, I’m thrilled to share the two organizations––for preservation and education––I’ve designated to receive a portion of the proceeds from my upcoming novel. (If you just can’t wait until summer, you can read an excerpt of CARRYING INDEPENDENCE now.)

A Newsletter and Blog

My website now has both. The newsletter, CHASING HISTORIES, will let readers, friends, and fans in on details about my author-related events nearest your zip code. You’ll also receive travel tips, history-related photos, book ideas, and little tidbits of history I’ve discovered during my travels for words. I hope you’ll subscribe. (If you subscribed to my past blog, your subscription will transition here.)

The blog, COMPOSITIONS, is now a space for American history-enthusiasts like me. Brief posts of about 200 words will highlight other American history-related events, places, historians, authors, and artists. Guest posts are encouraged. Please contact me if you’d like to contribute, or sign-up on the blog page.

Collaboration and Thanks

An author brand never comes together without a crew, and thankfully a merry band of amazing women-entrepreneurs crafted it with me.

Christina Reeser of i.o.Studio is the website developer who wrote that beautiful code. Stephanie Caruso of Paste Creative is managing my newsletter and more. The lovely folks at BluChic crafted the WordPress theme.

Kim Frost was the photographer behind the camera, with the vision to capture my time-traveling, NSDAR, French-inspired, author within. Stefanie Rae coiffed those unruly curls, and Kara at Avenue 42 met me at 6AM for makeup.

The locations for those photos included Richmond’s very own, CanCan Brasserie, and the Kent-Valentine House, an historic 19th century home now headquarters of the Garden Club of Virginia.

To all the above, I owe immense thanks. Because of them, we can all pack a virtual bag, grab a great hat, and go travel with adventure together.

– Karen

Historical Novel Places 2nd in William Faulkner Competition

November 9, 2017 By Karen A. Chase

I am thrilled to announce that two of my novels have placed in the 2017 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. Dedicated to promoting unpublished works, the competition received a total of over 3000 entries in 8 categories.

In the Unpublished Novel category, which amassed 502 entries, my historical novel, CARRYING INDEPENDENCE (about the signing of the Declaration of Independence), was short-listed to the top 12, and secured the 2nd-place position as runner-up.

I also entered the contest’s Novel-in-Progress category, just one of the 313 entries. My women’s fiction novel, DECOYS, still in development and set on a fictional island off North Carolina in 1957, was selected as one of 76 finalists.

I believe a big thank you for this goes to James River Writers (JRW). Through my membership, the opportunity to learn about the craft and the publishing industry has been phenomenal, and I found a writing tribe. Kris Spisak, helped me edit both novels. Kristi Tuck Austin and Katharine Herndon, among many, many other JRW members, have encouraged me to keep writing and editing when I needed it most.

For more information on the contest, JRW, my literary agent, and the books I submitted, a formal press release is here.

When A Story Starts

January 11, 2017 By Karen A. Chase

once_upon_a_time_lccn98518274 A dear friend of mine was struggling to choose when to begin her novel. Not when to begin writing, but when, in the timeline of her protagonist’s struggle, her story should begin.

One method we discussed was outlined in Syd Field’s book, Screenplay, The Foundations of Screen Writing. If the chronological timeline of a story are points along a line, numbered 1 through 10, we can begin with a glimpse of number 9 (the denouement), and then return to number 1 and write the rest in order. In All Is Lost we first see Robert Redford drifting in despair without his sailboat, then we are taken back and shown everything preceding it. The result? We know what’s coming before the protagonist does, but neither of us knows if by number 10 he will sink or swim, so we stick around to find out.

In a book I recently picked up, Wired For Story, the author Lisa Cron discusses the importance of starting your novel or script for the greatest neurological impact. Humans (readers) are hard-wired to hear/need stories. When tales begin, we want to be drawn in to know whose story it is, what’s happening, and what’s a stake. In Albert Camus’, The Stranger, this is accomplished with just three words. “Mother died today.” The child will be somehow affected by a death. I want to read on.

And that, my fellow writers, is the goal that ultimately my friend and I agreed upon. We strive to begin our books so it increases our readers’ curiosity to such a pitch they must keep reading.

There are countless articles that share countless ways on when and how to begin, (this one from Writer’s Digest illustrates 10 Ways to Begin). When or where have you decided to begin?